Collection of Classical Antiquities

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The Staatliche Museen’s Antikensammlung (Collection of Classical Antiquities) is one of the most important collections of ancient Greek and Roman art in the world. Its most famous and spectacular showpiece – the more than 2000-year-old monumental Pergamon Altar, a masterpiece of Hellenistic art whose boldly expressive sculptural frieze depicts the battle between the gods and the Giants – attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors every year.

Collection of Classical Antiquities

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Architectural structures and elements, sculptures and vases, inscriptions, mosaics, bronzes, and jewellery: this dazzling array of classical antiquities is on permanent display at two separate sites on the Museumsinsel Berlin, in the Pergamonmuseum, and the Altes Museum. In addition to these two major exhibitions, the Antikensammlung also presents a selection of its objects at the Neues Museum to enrich the joint exhibitions held there by other departments of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Its presentation in the Neues Museum predominantly features art from the provinces of the Roman Empire and artefacts from its extensive Cyprus collection

Altes Museum

Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s Altes Museum, completed in 1830, is one of the most important buildings of the Neoclassical era. The monumental arrangement of eighteen Ionic fluted columns, the expansive atrium and sweeping staircase that invites visitors to ascend to the top, the rotunda adorned with Antique sculptures on all sides as a place to collect one’s thoughts and an explicit reference to Rome’s Pantheon: such signs of architectural refinement had previously only ever been seen in buildings designed for royalty and the nobility. The inscription on the portico reads: ‘Friedrich Wilhelm III has dedicated this museum to the study of all antiquities and the free arts, 1828’. Today the museum houses the Antikensammlung, showcasing its permanent exhibition on the art and culture of the Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans. The Münzkabinett complements this sweeping overview of classical antiquity with its display of ancient coins.

The opening of the Neues Museum marked a key chapter in the history of 19th-century art, museum design, and technology. Designed by Friedrich August Stüler and built from 1843 to 1855, the building suffered severe damage during World War II, after which it was left as an abandoned bombsite. Emergency measures to secure the structure were only taken in the 1980s.

Painstaking restoration work got under way in 2003 and was undertaken by the offices of the British architect David Chipperfield. The building’s façade and interiors were carefully preserved, the scars of the war were not patched over but rather incorporated into the restoration of the landmarked building. What emerged was a restored historical building that is simultaneously a modern museum. Chipperfield thus managed to lend this extraordinary building and former ruin a unique and wholly authentic splendour.

The museum reopened its doors to the public in 2009 and combines geographically and thematically related exhibits pooled together from three separate collections at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin: the collection of Egyptian art from the Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung, of prehistoric objects from the Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte, and of classical antiquities from the Antikensammlung. This joint exhibition featuring exhibits of unparalleled breadth and diversity allows visitors to trace the development of prehistoric and protohistoric cultures, spanning from the Middle East to the Atlantic, from north Africa to Scandinavia.

The Pergamonmuseum was designed by Alfred Messel; its construction was overseen by Ludwig Hoffmann and lasted twenty years, from 1910 to 1930. A smaller building initially stood on the same site for a just few years before being torn down. It housed the important excavation finds unearthed by the Berlin museums, such as the frieze panels from the Pergamon Altar, reclaimed from the earth in digs that lasted from 1878 to 1886. Inadequate foundations, however, soon resulted in the building becoming structurally unstable and it had to be demolished.

The new, larger Pergamonmuseum was built as a three-wing complex. The museum now houses three of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin’s collections: the Antikensammlung, Vorderasiatisches Museum, and the Museum für Islamische Kunst. The impressive reconstructions of massive archaeological structures – the Pergamon Altar, Market Gate of Miletus, the Ishtar Gate and Processional Way from Babylon, and the Mshatta Facade – have made the Pergamonmuseum famous throughout the world, with the result that it is the most visited museum at the Staatliche Museen and in Germany as a whole.

As part of the Masterplan Museumsinsel, the museum has been undergoing staggered renovation work since 2013.

Please note that due to construction and the high volume of visitors, longer waiting times may be experienced.